


The Thing About the Vagabond

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - GTA V, Brief drunk scene, Canon-Typical Violence, Close Calls, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, Gen, Hugs, Non-Graphic Violence, Please let me know if I need to add any tags, hurt/comfort elements, this is literally a "give the vagabond some damn hugs already" fic, with a side of "ryan please allow affection into your life"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23267701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Five times Ryan Haywood, the Vagabond, gave someone a hug, and one time he was on the receiving end of an embrace.
Relationships: Ryan Haywood & Everyone, Ryan Haywood & Jack Pattillo, Ryan Haywood & Michael Jones
Comments: 38
Kudos: 203





	The Thing About the Vagabond

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first AH fic, though I plan for it to be far from my last. I don't remember when or why I got this idea, but I am very glad I had it. Please let me know if there's anything I need to tag, and also let me know what you think! Kudos are great but comments are my lifeblood. If you'd like to see me ramble about headcanons and various AH au's, you can find me on tumblr under the username ilookbetterinslowmo, where I'm currently quite active!
> 
> Brief warning in the second scene for drunk characters, for wounds/violence in the fourth and fifth scenes, and near-death experiences in the first, fifth, and final scenes (none of it graphic.)
> 
> Special thanks to Willow on the discord for beta'ing/supporting this.

  1. Here’s the thing about Vagabond:



He’s a scary motherfucker. The crew knows it. The underground knows it. The police, the city, the media; they all know it.

He’s scary because he commits horrors just for the hell of it. Because he lives on the spilling of blood, the roar of fire, the recoil of gunfire and flesh’s resistance to the drag of a knife. He’s scary because no one lives if he doesn’t want them to, and he’s scary because he does everything from close-combat stealth to big flashy getaways, and he’s scary because he’s found a crew to work with.

He’s terrifying because he’s part of something bigger than himself now.

It first comes to light just how strong that last point is during a hit going wrong. Jack had just stepped out of the getaway jeep, intending to unleash some hell from a good distance so her teammates could get to safety. She’s pulled grenades seemingly from thin air, yelling victoriously as the rival gang starts to scatter under her onslaught, when someone on the other side has the bright idea to return the favor.

Bright, literally; a flashbang goes off just a few yards from Jack and the jeep, and from where he’s managed to find a hiding spot, the Vagabond sees her stumbling, blinking as she tries to regain her senses. Sees her blindly reaching for the jeep, knowing it spells safety; sees her instead step onto the road, the one that leads further into the complex where these assholes are operating.

Sees all that, and then hears an unfamiliar engine, roaring closer. A bright red souped-up thing, a rival car, gunning towards the firefight; his eyes widened as he sees the car swerve suddenly, aiming for something else, _someone_ else.

For Jack.

Ryan is up and running in an instant. He has to trust that the other four will get themselves out of the snarl of guns that swarms the entrance to the warehouses; Jack needs his help, because she can’t see or hear the death she’s being threatened with.

By some miracle of adrenaline, he manages to get to her first, barely. There’s no time for anything but to wrap her up in his arms and bodily tackle her out of the way, both of them slamming on the asphalt and skidding. Jack instinctually latches back onto him, her two strongest senses stolen, even as they slam back onto the asphalt. She needs the input, needs to understand her situation; he knows this and doesn’t resist. The Vagabond’s suffered enough flashbangs to instill a deep hatred of them in his heart.

For a long moment, though, something strange happens: he doesn’t let her move off of him. He holds on — and she the same — for what could be a lifetime in a firefight before feeling her heave a deliberate breath against his chest. And then she’s standing again, whipping out a pistol and firing at the blood red vehicle until its windows finally shatter and it rolls to a halt, driver dead. Vagabond’s already back on his feet by the third shot, laying down the cover fire his teammates need to escape.

Later, half-hanging out of the car to dissuade any pursuers with his rifle, relishing in the fear on his enemies’ faces as they see his mask, Ryan realizes that that’s the most he’s ever touched one of his crewmates. He’s only been with the crew for a month and a half, and outside of sparring and good-natured shoving each other out of the way at the base, they all have a healthy respect for his personal space.

But he’d tackled Jack, and he’s pretty sure that for a second, he had hugged her and she’d done the same, if only out of fear and disorientation. The revelation almost makes him fall out of the window.

It’s just—it’s been so long since anyone touched him like that. Life as a mercenary doesn’t exactly lend itself to touchy-feely moments, and he’d been so busy maintaining and building his reputation and doing jobs, taking down double-crossers and keeping on the move, keeping untraceable, untouchable— 

He can’t remember the last time he got a hug, in any capacity. Probably before he crossed the Mississippi.

He kind of wishes that Jack would have held on longer, but he knows that’s ridiculous. They were in the middle of a shootout, and he’d only been doing what he needed to keep his crew from being downsized. Just making sure that they wouldn’t lose someone to a lucky flashbang and a hit-and-run, a death no one, least of all a Fake, deserved.

But when they arrive back to the base, successful but scowling at the way things had gone south, Ryan sees Jack flash him a grateful smile and mouth “thank you” over the growing argument between Geoff and Michael. The sincerity of it makes his eyes go wide again behind the mask.

Thank god no one can see his face. He knows he looks like a fool beneath the mask, dressed in body armor and safe at the base, yet weirdly desperate to be back on a nowhere road outside an enemy complex, a teammate grabbed tight to him as they flew through the air.

He stops the thoughts, tells himself it’s his addiction to adrenaline, and gives them all a respectful nod and a “Good job” before stalking off to the bathroom to wash up the old paint and shove down this new desire.

* * *

2\. Here’s another thing about Vagabond: he’s patient.

He has to be. He’s an assassin, a torturer, does heists with stakeouts and works at a base with six people and only two bathrooms. (Well, three, but Geoff is likely to actually kill anyone he catches using his private bathroom. Ryan knows there’s a current bet to see who between Jeremy, Michael, and Gavin can use it most before getting caught. Michael’s currently winning.) 

His patience is part of why he’s terrifying. Standing ominously behind your boss during an arms deal full of vague threats and veiled interrogations gets boring _really quickly,_ but it’s the most efficient way to scare someone. He can’t even take out a knife to play with anymore, not after Geoff scolded him for scaring away a potential buyer two hours into negotiations. He’s stuck just standing, almost wishing something would happen, and so he’s learned patience.

That patience gets used in other ways, too. Like here, half a block away from a thrumming nightclub, where he’s trying to corral a very drunk Gavin and Michael towards the car.

Michael’s cackling over nothing like the little shit he is, and Gavin’s protesting, trying to convince Ryan to take them bar-hopping. “There’s a—a bloody good one jus’ two blocks down, come _on_ let’s just stop in for a minute,” he wheedles, and tries to turn a corner.

He’s patient, but he’s also a bit annoyed, especially when Michael starts to follow, so he reaches out and grabs Gavin’s shoulder. The man resists his pull with surprising strength given how drunk and skinny he is, but he’s absolutely no match for Ryan.

The squawk Gavin lets out as the Vagabond drags him into a side hug and holds him tight is one of the weirdest sounds he’s ever heard a human produce. It sets Michael off again, the younger man howling so hard with laughter that he nearly falls over. Ryan ends up catching his arm to keep him from face-planting into the concrete. Gavin’s grabbed Ryan’s arm in surprise, staring dumbly at the limb over his shoulders, and then he crows:

“I’m getting a _hug_ from the _Vagabond!_ ”

“Holy shit,” Michael yells in response, then retches, and again: “Holy shit, Gav, he’s—he’s fucking _hugging_ you.” Another pause. “What the fuck?”

Silent, unsure how to respond, Ryan goes to start walking again, dragging both drunkards with him. Gavin presses closer to him, clumsily throwing his arms around Vagabond’s waist. Michael makes some incomprehensible joke about them getting a room, but Ryan’s totally tuned out everything except the car thirty feet away. At least, until he hears Gavin yelling again, this time saying “Million dollars says I’m the first one of us to get a hug from him, I bet. Big mean Vagabond, givin’ me a hug!”

And, well, that’s just too tempting a bubble to pop. He feels an evil grin fall onto his face as he quietly says “No, I’ve already hugged Jack.”

No more words are needed. Gavin lets out another avian wail, this time in outrage and disappointment, and Michael actually collapses in laughter and rolls shrieking on the ground in response.

It takes Ryan another three minutes to get them to move the ten yards to the car and then actually get in. He sighs as he gets behind the wheel, knowing he’ll actually have to drive responsibly if he doesn’t want to spend his night cleaning up puke from the backseat. The drive back to the base is relatively short, given the sheer scope of Los Santos, but he glances back frequently to make sure his passengers are still awake and not about to ruin the upholstery in any way.

On the ride up the elevator, Gavin leans against him again, mumbling something Vagabond can’t catch. Ryan slings an arm around his shoulder again to help him stay upright, and says nothing at the surprisingly clear look Michael’s giving him, a smirk he doesn’t quite know how to interpret.

Thankfully, neither of them say anything about it the next day.

* * *

3\. Thing number three: Vagabond is also Ryan, and Ryan is excitable.

It’s a heist that’s got his blood flowing (what else would it be? The chase, the prize, the explosions and the danger… he _lives_ for this.) The crew has all just pulled into the base, having successfully ditched the cops and any civilians playing hero, and they’re all bright as stars with excitement. The heist had been six months in the making—not just a criminal move, but a political one, to clean out the most secure bank in enemy territory. (And not just any enemy—Rooster territory, their _biggest_ enemy, the ones who had gone the longest without getting knocked down a few pegs.)

And it had gone like a _dream_. The crowd behaved, Ryan got to shoot some cops, no one got anything worse than a shallow graze from a bullet. He’ll be forever savoring the feeling of Jack’s car flying through the air as vehicles piled up behind them, Michael’s screaming laughter and Geoff’s joyous howls echoing with the wind whipping through the windows.

“We fucking did it, boys and girl!” Geoff’s practically dancing his way over to the kitchen, slamming a few duffel bags of their winnings on the kitchen table. “The cleanest fucking sweep I’ve ever seen! That was so fucking perfect, I love you all, we’re on top of this fucking city!”

There’s only six of them, but the cheer that goes up at those words could deafen.

Ryan rips off his mask, the paint beneath smeared but still recognizable, still an effective disguise. He lets out a rare, full laugh, high and airy, as he sees Michael put Gavin in a headlock and rub his knuckles against his scalp. In the kitchen, Jack’s pulling out cups while Geoff gathers armfuls of liquor and sweets, and Ryan’s itching to do something with all this energy, _anything_ —

Jeremy, dodging Gavin’s flailing limbs, bumps into Ryan’s side. The hitman spins instantly to face him, sees Jeremy’s blinding grin as he laughs, the bright colors of his outfit only ramping up the sheer energy of the whole room, and before Ryan can even think this through he’s wrapped his arms around Jeremy and lifted him clean off the ground.

The muscle-bound man lets out a yell of surprise as his arms are pinned to his side and kicks his feet like a kid, but he’s still laughing, and so’s everyone else; and the simple act of holding someone and carrying them feels _good_. Ryan lets out a whoop and spins around once, twice, before setting Jeremy down and clapping him on the shoulder. “Shit, Ryan,” the shorter man beams out, “I didn’t know you gave out hugs.”

His smile falters for a second beneath the paint, but then he shrugs. “Only to people I like.”

“Aww,” Jack coos jokingly at him from across the room, and at the same time Michael yells, “But you hugged Gavin!”

“That didn’t count,” Ryan grins, because it’s fun to see Gavin fumble for words in indignation. “I couldn’t exactly frogmarch him while holding you up, Michael..”

“You prick!” yells Gavin, and charges him. Geoff joins in the chase, demanding he get a hug as the “best boss ever,” but Ryan evades them with ease, ending up with Jeremy hugged against his chest again like a human shield and ignoring the way his stomach twitches at the thought of hugging everyone in this room.

He drowns the feeling in alcohol, a rare indulgence for himself, and wakes up to Gavin draped over his chest and Jack curled up on his legs in the spare bedroom, both sleeping soundly. Ryan extricates himself before either of them can stir, but he takes the time to pull the blankets back over them.

* * *

4\. A fourth thing: Ryan cares about his friends.

He really does, even if he’s shitty at showing it the same way they do. He doesn’t have the physical ease to just hug someone like Jeremy, or grab them like Michael, or literally _climb_ them like Gavin (what the _fuck_ , Gavin.) But he’s there for them as much as he can be, the only way he knows how: protecting them as best he can, being there physically if not touching, listening (if not talking.)

But this—this is different. This is the crew on the verge of breaking down into something small, the crew dangerously threatened by their love for each other. Once, Ryan would have advised them to remove the love altogether, but he knows better now. That doesn’t mean it’s not still a real danger—doesn’t mean the Roosters couldn’t brutalise it as a weakness in their retaliation for the bank heist, leaving Gavin silent, Jeremy distant, Michael quiet and Jack—

Jack’s a _wreck_. She’s hiding it very well; after all, while Geoff’s out in surgery getting five bullets pulled out of him, she’s the one in charge. But Ryan knows her better than most, because he cares about her and is more comfortable with her; he saw how distraught she was driving the getaway vehicle, when she was the only one who couldn’t put a hand on Geoff to help stop the bleeding because she needed them for the wheel. Heard how she fought to keep her voice from cracking when she gave the lads hugs and checked them over before sending them to their rooms, promising a meeting in the morning. Ryan cares about Jack, like he does the whole crew, and he wants to help, but silence and physical acknowledgement aren’t enough here.

So, as she turns to him to tell him to go to sleep too, Ryan quickly steps across the living room and puts his arms around her shoulders.

He means for it to be a gentle gesture, but Jack instantly is clinging to him, her face buried in the shoulder of his jacket and he can feel her shaking where she’s pressed against him. She’s not making much noise besides hitched little gasps that he can tell are aborted sobs; they grow stronger when he slides one arm down to wrap it more solidly around her back, the other hand coming up to cup the back of her head. It’s perhaps the most intimate he’s ever been with a crewmate, and it feels right that Jack, their kindest soul, is the first one he hugs like this.

He feels like he should say something. He tries, “It’ll be okay,” but cuts it off halfway through the first word because it doesn’t feel true. “I got you” is, bizarrely, his second thought, but it’s redundant, so he doesn’t even give it air.

“He’s a tough son of a bitch,” he ends up saying finally, and Jack startles slightly against him. She snorts, too, and though it’s still a wet sound Ryan counts it as a victory. “He’ll be back here inside of a few weeks, lording his injuries over us and bitching about how he can’t go out on heist until Sarah and Steffie give him the all-clear.”

Jack’s smile is small, but he feels it against his collarbone. “I—I’m gonna have to handcuff him to the wh-wheelchair, he’ll rattle the chains just to be annoying like—like a damn ghost.”

“I’ve got lots of zip ties in my room,” Ryan offers. “He wouldn’t be able to jangle those.”

There’s a long pause, just long enough for Ryan to realize that’s not a typical response, and then Jack lets out a proper laugh. She pulls away slightly from Ryan as she says, “Ryan, what the _fuck_ ,” and when he shrugs she lets her hands slide off his back. He does the same.

Her smile is genuine now, though small; like the crew, he thinks. Small, but real, and when they want to they can be bigger than anything. 

“Thanks,” she says, and then lets out the heaviest sigh Ryan’s ever heard. “I—yeah. This is rough, but we’ll be okay. We always are.”

“Always,” Ryan echoes.

“I’m gonna go to sleep,” she tells him. “You should do the same.”

“I will.”

She smiles again and then turns and leaves Ryan standing a little awkwardly in the middle of the empty living room. He’s not entirely sure what just happened, why he did that, _any_ of that, from the hug to the promises to the small talk—but it helped, really, and that’s what matters. He’ll hug Jack for a whole hour if it helps. He’d do it for any of the crew. Any of the people he so deeply cares about.

* * *

5\. The final thing is this: Vagabond is not afraid of dying.

“Go,” he snarls at Jeremy, the two of them backed up against the boat rail, “I’ll cover you, now _go_!”

The thief nods and quickly clambers over the bars, making a surprisingly neat dive into the water despite the almost dizzying height. Ryan hears the deck door slam open and puts a bullet between the Rooster’s eyes before he can even raise his gun. 

The hatred coiling in his chest eases just slightly as the body falls. The Fakes hadn’t expected an attack against Geoff’s goddamned _yacht_ while out on open waters, an attack made in full knowledge that their crew was taking a little break while their boss finished his recovery from the Rooster’s earlier bullets. The Bang Boat, despite the fact that its name alone warranted eradication, should have been _safe_. It was an attack meant to beat them into nothingness, to wipe them off the map completely, but like everyone else, they’d underestimated how hard the Fakes would fight to protect their own, and their own status.

Michael had spotted the boats first—small dark things, drifting towards the yacht in silence. He’d told Jack, who’d dragged a protesting Geoff down to where the speedboat was docked, because of _course_ this would be the one time they didn’t fly out to the yacht. The rest of them had set up to cover their leaders, under the impression that they’d be able to handle the attackers, and had made the mistake of splitting into pairs. Ryan and Jeremy had moved towards the fore, Michael and Gavin to the aft—and then things had _really_ gone to shit.

The Roosters had to have brought in hired guns, because the stream of people taking over the boat was seemingly endless. Or maybe it was the body armor protecting them, combined with the chaotic fight that made headshots difficult. Ryan and Jeremy had taken cover behind the hot tub bar, a good defensive position, but they were stuck there until Ryan realized he could hear the speedboat making its way towards them, which had led to now, with Jeremy swimming and Ryan covering. He can hear Gavin yelling for Jeremy; that left only one person unaccounted for, then, and in the silence of the last enemy dropping to the hardwood deck, he thinks:

Where is Michael?

Across the little patio, a hallway door bursts open, an unfamiliar body flying halfway across the deck from a hefty kick. Michael stumbles out before the unconscious goon has landed, already blocking punches from another assailant. Still unseen, Ryan peeks over the top of the bar and aims down the hallway, seeing a few bodies shifting in the darkness. Three body shots—he can’t make out the heads—and they retreat, the door swinging shut.

“FUCK OFF!” Michael lets out a mighty roar and flips his assailant over his shoulder, following up with a nasty stomp to the man’s face. He looks around and spots Ryan. Relief floods over the anger on his face, though it doesn’t fully obscure it, and he quickly makes his way over to the Vagabond behind the bar.

“You okay?” he mutters. He’s picked up the gun from the judo-flipped guy, taking aim next to Ryan. Ryan nods, silent, wanting to draw out unsuspecting enemies, the better to pick them off.

Michael continues. “Where’s the rest of them?”

“Speedboat,” he answers. “Quick swim over if you hop off the rail.”

“Shit.” Michael hisses. “If we both go, they’ll just pick us off as we swim.” His breath is heavy, though steadying, and Ryan spares a quick glance to see that he’s relatively unwounded, just a few shallow scratches across his arms and shoulders.

It isn’t even a decision. “I’ll cover you,” he says, just like he had to Jeremy. “You guys need to leave.”

“What?” Michael’s incredulity both stings and sweetens his heart. “What, no, I’m not leaving you here, Ryan, they’ll kill you!” His voice is rising. “You’re the Vagabond, but—that’s a whole _crew_ , Ryan, plus some, even you can’t eradicate the Roosters! I’m not—”

Vagabond slams a hand over Michael’s mouth, feeling his eyes narrow menacingly behind the mask. “The crew needs you, Mogar,” he says, low and quiet. “I’m going to fucking cover you, and you’re all gonna get away.”

“Fuck that! Fuck _Mogar!_ ” Michael spits, ripping his hand away. “Fuck all of that, the crew needs you, Ryan! The crew needs us both, I’m _not leaving you here!”_

“On deck!” comes a distant yell—a Rooster has overheard them. Their time is limited.

“We’re going together or not at all, Ryan, I swear to god—” Michael’s voice hitches, and Ryan’s eyes widen when he realizes Michael is near tears. “You—we—Ryan, I haven’t even gotten a hug from you yet, you can’t die here.”

The realization that Michael is pleading with him makes Ryan’s skin crawl. It’s _wrong_ ; Michael is stubborn, argumentative, not appealing or negotiating.

He can hear footsteps, people approaching from the closed hallway, from the game room, from downstairs, from more angles than he could hope to cover. He can hear the rest of their crew, screaming from the speedboat, saying that they have to leave soon. He can see Michael in front of him, frustrated, hopeful, determined, scared—

Hears it all, sees Michael, and makes his decision. He stands, roughly grabbing Michael and holding him close, arms locked around the younger man’s own so he can’t struggle. He still tries; Ryan hears him blurt out “no” in desperation, feels his hands try to fist in Ryan’s jacket, clings Michael close as he pushes back against Ryan’s arms to try and break free. It’s too late.

 _“No!”_ Michael screams again, as Ryan turns, adjusts, and throws him over the railing. The pistol Michael had stolen clatters next to Ryan on the deck as Michael falls from view, yells from the speedboat overpowering Michael’s cry.

Vagabond reaches down and scoops up the pistol, weighs it in his hand; it’ll do. The footsteps are close now. For the last time, he turns to the railing, seeing the speedboat just a bit closer: drifting in the current towards the yacht, towards Michael’s surfacing body, towards Ryan. He sees Gavin pointing at Michael, Jack craning her neck up towards where Ryan stares down at them, Jeremy all but holding Geoff in his seat, sees the wild looks on their faces. Fakes, through and through; fighting tooth and nail and heaven help anyone who found themselves in the way.

Ryan isn’t about to risk them all for something as simple as his life.

“Go!” he roars, just once. Then the footsteps become too loud to ignore, and he drops behind the bar, below the railing, and prepares to rain bullet-shaped hell on the ones who’d dared attack them.

He automatically tries to block out everything but the fight. Distantly, he registers the speedboat fading away, the same distant way he registers bodies dropping to the deck, on top of each other, the cries of pain from the wounds he inflicted. His guns run out; he switches to knives, moving slowly from cover to cover and taking out whoever he can along the way. The Vagabond will not go down without fighting like the devil; he’ll make the Roosters and their allies regret ever coming after his own.

But Michael had been right; he can’t take them all. A bullet finds his calf, a fist the back of his head; more wounds rain down on him, and he falters against the railing.

One last defiant act. He is not afraid of death; he’s made that much clear. But he’ll choose his own, and he chooses now to die in the sea, to deny them the trophy of his cold body.

He tips backwards, and then he’s falling, and he can see drops of his own blood scattered in the air above him like stars, backlit by muzzles of guns and the yacht itself; then his breath is gone as he slams into the cold, unforgiving water, and he sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing.

* * *

+1. Ryan is many things. He is scary, and patient, and excitable; he cares about his friends and isn’t scared of death.

He is also very nervous about knocking on this door.

It’s been three weeks since the yacht. Ryan’s genuinely uncertain as to how he survived; he must have not quite gone unconscious, because he’d somehow pulled himself onto a buoy, drenched through and through and shivering violently. He’d sat there for hours, wrapped his legs and tried to not fall asleep as the back of his head throbbed, dully echoed by his whole body. A slow death by blood loss had seemed certain, or hypothermia, barring that.

He didn’t have high hopes for anyone finding him.

Then again, he hadn’t exactly had high hopes of surviving to resurface from the water. Determined to prove him wrong, the universe gave his salvation in form of a small sailboat, its owner out for a simple pleasure ride and willing to help Ryan for the small fee of a few hundred bucks that Ryan kept on himself at all times. Another miracle; it hadn’t floated out of his pockets or gotten covered in blood.

Dropped off at an innocuous pier, he’d made his way to a safehouse. Hadn’t called anyone, hadn’t reached out; just stayed low and healed and tried to not think of Michael’s face as he’d fallen.

Jack, at the steering wheel, driving a wounded Geoff, forced to abandon Ryan. Jeremy’s trust, in the hug, in Ryan’s cover fire. Gavin drunk, Gavin squawking.

Tried, and heartily failed, to not think of his crew, how they were doing without him.

Did they care? They surely did, but how much? Had they cried? Had they gone silent, had they searched for him? Who had Jack sobbed against? Had Gavin gotten drunk until he couldn’t stand and had to lean on someone, had Michael shoved away any comforting touch? Who was holding Jeremy? Was Geoff eerily silent and empty again, unresponsive to anyone?

Or were they already moving on, letting him go and growing tighter for it? He hoped that was the case, even though the thought made his skin grow cold like he was back in the water, his fingers twitching in response to the idea that they wouldn’t need him soon. He told himself it was the sign of a good crew, of the fact that they deserved top-dog spot in this city, if they could move on from him that fast, let their love for him flow out to sea like they thought his body must have. He imagined them planning one last revenge against the Roosters, not just for his assumed death but for their own safety and reputation, imagined them heisting without him, forgetting about him.

Tried, and heartily failed, to do the same. The Vagabond and the Fakes didn’t need each other anymore, not even the memories. He couldn’t imagine going back to them; it’d been a week and he was still barely able to walk, two weeks and he still couldn’t even make himself text them, three weeks and here he is outside their door, _why?_

They didn’t need him anymore. The Vagabond had been left in the ocean, sacrificed saving them, and now he’s standing in front of this door, very much not dead, very much unwilling to put himself out where his heart might be broken.

Because fuck, he cares about them, and cares what they think about him.

Ryan is many things, but he’ll never let himself be a coward, so he makes a fist so tight his nails nearly break through his palm and knocks. Forces himself to not disappear like the Vagabond’s so good at doing. Waits. There’s loud cursing—Geoff—and things crashing— Michael, maybe, though it could easily be anyone.

The door opens, Geoff stares at him, and before Ryan can say anything the door slams shut in his face.

He hears a muffled scream from Geoff through the metal. The first cracks form in his heart, footholds for the Vagabond to take over fully, and he almost lets the colder personality win when the door flies open again. He’s grabbed roughly around the arm, yanked in, and then he grunts in shock as Geoff slams him into a hug.

Ryan ignores the way his stitches and scabs are being pulled and clings back, shaking. He doesn’t know why he’s shaking, but Geoff is too, and he wants nothing more than to stop that.

They didn’t move on from him. 

“Geoff?” Jeremy’s voice, and Ryan tenses up again. He raises his head from Geoff’s shoulder just long enough to see the pure shock on Jeremy’s face before the shorter man turns and runs down the hall. Ryan’s terrified for all of three seconds before he hears Jeremy calling: “He’s back! He made it, he’s _back_ , Ryan’s here!”

“You son of a bitch,” Geoff tells him, and pulls back enough for Ryan to see the tears streaming down his face. “You fucking bastard, Ryan, you couldn’t fucking tell us, you didn’t think to—” 

He’s cut off by a miniature stampede, Jeremy and Jack and Gavin all sprinting and shoving their way down the hall, but Geoff’s grip is beautifully tight on his arm, a promise of staying. His boss stands aside to let the others have at him, and within moments Ryan’s engulfed in limbs, Jeremy’s arms around his waist and Gavin at his side, hooking a leg around his far thigh, like he can’t be close enough. Jack flutters in the background for a second before finding an open spot, one arm wrapping around his neck and the other hand cupping the back of his head. It’s intimate, deeply loving in a way that makes Ryan’s breath hitch. He can feel Jeremy’s tears soaking his shirt, Gavin mumbling British nonsense against his shoulder as Jack’s hand strokes his hair.

They didn’t stop caring.

Somewhere in the next couple minutes, they move to the couch. Gavin doesn’t ever let go of him, and Jack checks his wounds three times over while Geoff alternates between lecturing Ryan for ghosting them, marveling at the fact that he’s alive, and giving him more hugs. In the rare silent moments, Ryan explains to the three of them what happened, saving the emotional details; he’s tired, he’s stunned and shaken and so deeply relieved, and he wants to just sit here and be held for a while.

He’s missed this more than he thought.

Jeremy’s gone to get Michael, who’s at a quarry at Chilliad to let off some steam. Ryan wonders how many explosives he’s set off there in the past three weeks, wonders just how much rage he’s in for—because he cares about his friends, and he knows Michael’s first reaction will be anger.

The door slams open so hard it nearly comes off the hinges, without warning. Ryan’s left defenseless on the couch as Michael stalks towards him, Jeremy all but jogging in behind him. Jack and Gavin part like a boat’s wake as Michael approaches, Geoff’s in the corner, and there’s nothing between Ryan and Michael’s rage. It’s almost scary, vulnerable as he’s let himself become; he struggles to not hide, to remember that this is how Michael cares, how he _stays_.

“You threw me off the fucking deck,” Michael yells and towers over him, and Ryan does nothing. “You gave me a half-assed excuse for a hug and threw me off the fucking deck, you fuck, and then you didn’t fucking contact us?! Three fucking weeks we were all just thinking you were dead when you were off sipping fucking margaritas and taking a goddamn vacation?” 

“No,” Ryan murmurs, because the accusations hurt, and Michael’s fist tangles itself in the front of his shirt and pulls him up from the couch.

“You _fuck_ ,” Michael suddenly sob-screams, “I thought you were _dead_ , fucking hug me you bastard,” and then that fist is dragging Ryan forwards even as Michael lurches the opposite direction and knocks them both to the floor. For a moment, Ryan can’t breathe again, like when he fell, like when Geoff hugged him, this moment a cruel mix of both; then he’s drawing in air strongly as Michael’s holding him, though he thinks the weight of his heart might punch it right out of him again. He can feel movement against his chest as Michael curses him out and cries.

He exhales sharply as Gavin flops down on top of them both, wriggling his face in between their shoulders, which can’t possibly be comfortable but he doesn’t move. Ryan’s left arm is now pinned and outstretched, and Geoff sits down to grab his hand and lay the other on Gavin’s back. Jeremy lets out a wet laugh before shoving Michael to make room enough to pillow his own head on Ryan’s chest.

Jack’s left staring down at them, and Ryan holds out a hand to her, a silent plea, and she answers with a beautiful smile, sprawling herself atop the whole pile and holding Ryan’s hand to her chest, heartbeat strong against his knuckles.

Underneath them all, under their love and care, Ryan is a bit amazed that he’s made it this far. That he made it out of the sea, let alone hugged them before; that he came back at all, that they didn’t turn him away. He’s a scary, patient, excitable, caring, fearless motherfucker, and everyone knows it, but that’s not all.

Because here’s the thing about Vagabond, about Ryan, that he’s only just discovered: he can hold all his crew at once like this, and he’s not about to let go.


End file.
